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A-Rod May Be Guilty, But We All Are Responsible

I’ve been a die-hard Yankees fan ever since I was 8 years old, when my dad took me to my first game right after Hebrew school one Sunday morning. I grew up in the mid-80’s and early 90’s, back when the Yankees had luminaries such as Mike Pagliarulo, Wayne Tolleson and Eric Plunk, and when they were closer to last place than to first.

As I grew older and they started winning, I naturally loved the Yankees who had come up through the farm system, like Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. But I also was excited about the players the Yankees brought in — people like Paul O’Neill, Mike Mussina, and even Roger Clemens. After all, they were great players who were coming to play on my favorite team.

So in 2004, when Alex Rodriguez signed with the Yankees, I was ecstatic. Yes, I had known about his tiff with Derek Jeter, and yes, I had heard he was difficult in the clubhouse, but he was the best player of his generation, and I wanted to root for him. Unfortunately, he made it difficult to do so.

A-Rod has always created a media circus wherever he went, and these latest allegations (and potential suspension) for using PEDs and obstructing Major League Baseball’s investigation are, unfortunately, not all that surprising to me (or anyone else who follows baseball). But so much of what has been written about this Biogenesis scandal has been oversimplified to “A-Rod is a rich, selfish bum who cheated and so he should be kicked out.”

I think the situation is more complicated than that because we have to remember that A-Rod’s actions didn’t occur in a vacuum.

Jim Caple of ESPN recently wrote an insightful piece entitled “Understanding A-Rod’s Infractions,” and he reminds us that steroid use — and indeed, cheating in general — is rarely done out of malicious intent:

Athletes don’t dope because they are bad, evil people. They dope because there is a very strong incentive to do so.

Consider this…scenario: You can take a substance that might carry a slight risk to your health…but that could also make you a better player. If you take it, you might help earn yourself millions upon millions of dollars and the acclaim of fans. Your friends and teammates also will benefit from your improved performance. And you know many others in your profession are already doing so. In fact, there is a decent chance you’ll need to take it to offset the advantage opponents have gained over you by taking the same thing.

Do you take it? If you are even tempted to say yes, you shouldn’t be so venomous in your judgments of Alex Rodriguez.

Yes, A-Rod deserves to be punished. And yes, we should try to rid the game of PED use. But while we’re casting judgments on A-Rod and Braun and the others implicated in the Biogenesis scandal and past steroid stories, we might want to consider casting that same harsh judgment on previous generations of players.

And on ourselves.

Obviously, A-Rod has issues, and there is no excuse for his behavior. But the larger issue for us to reflect on is our own views on cheating, morality and ethics.

One of the great moral voices of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, reminds us that “in a free society, few are guilty, but all are responsible.” In other words, while Rodriguez is the person who has to own up to his actions, we are all complicit in creating a system that encouraged it.

Indeed, social norms can easily trump even the strongest internal moral compass. Dan Ariely, author of the book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, has done research that shows that people tend to cheat when society views their actions as “normal” and “acceptable.” As he says, “In many areas of life, we look to others to learn what behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate. Dishonesty may very well be one of the cases where the social norms that define acceptable behavior are not very clear, and the behavior of others…can shape our ideas about what’s right and wrong.” (Ariely, 201)

This is a particularly powerful message for us as we prepare for the High Holy Days, and think about how we have acted in this past year. While we do reflect on the particular actions that we want to atone for, most of the prayers that we say are in the plural — “We have sinned, we have transgressed.”

In other words, we atone not only for our individual mistakes, but for the ways we have allowed (or even encouraged) immoral behavior to flourish. And so whether or not we ourselves have lied, cheated or used PED’s, we all have played a part in shaping the social norms that will define “ethical behavior,” which then provides the model for how others will behave.

So yes, A-Rod will have to answer for his own actions. But we all helped create the system that incentivized steroids.

We will soon find out if A-Rod is guilty. But regardless of the outcome, we all are responsible for creating the society we live in. And it’s the task of all of us to ensure it’s a moral one.

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To kick off its 18-month Scientists in Synagogues program, Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos, CA will explore the question of the compatibility of science and religion with three short films and community conversation.